These two units of the Minnesota Project English curriculum employ transformational grammar in an attempt to make eighth-grade students aware of fundamental facts about their language. Concepts taught in the first unit are (1) that an infinite number of English sentences exists, (2) that a few basic transformations are the basis for a large number…

A summative evaluation of a Program English curriculum which found that the effects of a study of transformational grammar on the language growth of secondary school students was negligible. (DD)

THIS TEST--"DOUBLE-BASE TRANSFORMATIONS"--WAS DESIGNED BY THE OREGON CURRICULUM STUDY CENTER FOR AN EIGHTH-GRADE LANGUAGE CURRICULUM. IT IS INTENDED TO ACCOMPANY CURRICULUM UNITS AVAILABLE AS ED 010 155 AND ED 010 156. (MM)

THESE TWO TESTS--"LANGUAGE TEST 1, PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES, 1-6" AND "LANGUAGE TEST 2, PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES, 7-12"--WERE DESIGNED BY THE OREGON CURRICULUM STUDY CENTER FOR A SEVENTH-GRADE LANGUAGE CURRICULUM. THEY ARE INTENDED TO ACCOMPANY CURRICULUM UNITS AVAILABLE AS ED 010 145 AND ED 010 146. (MM)

THIS TEST--"LANGUAGE TEST 3, PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES, 13-18"--WAS DESIGNED BY THE OREGON CURRICULUM STUDY CENTER FOR A SEVENTH-GRADE LANGUAGE CURRICULUM. IT IS INTENDED TO ACCOMPANY CURRICULUM UNITS AVAILABLE AS ED 010 147 AND ED 010 148. (MM)

THESE TWO TESTS--"EXPANSION OF PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES" AND "SINGLE-BASE TRANSFORMATIONS"--WERE DESIGNED BY THE OREGON CURRICULUM STUDY CENTER FOR AN EIGHTH-GRADE LANGUAGE CURRICULUM. THEY ARE INTENDED TO ACCOMPANY CURRICULUM UNITS AVAILABLE AS ED 010 153 AND ED 010 154. (MM)

Developed by the Oregon Elementary English Project, the eighteen lessons in this unit aim to interest third and fourth grade students in thinking about how sentences are made, to introduce some grammatical concepts, and to build on the instinctive knowledge students already have about the English language. The first three lessons are devoted to…

THE ENGLISH CURRICULUM CAN BE MADE MORE EFFECTIVE BY CONSIDERING THE SIGNIFICANT PART PLAYED BY THE COMPONENT OF GRAMMAR. THE NATIVE SPEAKER OF ENGLISH POSSESSES AN INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE OF THE RULES OF GRAMMAR AND YET CANNOT EXPLAIN WHAT HIS INTUITION KNOWS. THEREFORE, A PRECISE, ECONOMICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE LANGUAGE MECHANISM AND HOW IT FUNCTIONS…

Developed by the Oregon Elementary English Project, this curriculum unit introduces fifth and sixth graders to sentence structure. Based on transformational grammar, the unit (1) demonstrates to students their built-in knowledge of English grammar which enables them to produce and recognize sentences although they are not consciously aware of…

THESE FOUR TESTS--"MORE ABOUT QUESTIONS,""THE NEGATIVE,""EXPANSION OF TRANSITIVE VERBS," AND "DETERMINERS"--WERE DESIGNED BY THE OREGON CURRICULUM STUDY CENTER FOR A NINTH-GRADE LANGUAGE CURRICULUM. THEY ARE INTENDED TO ACCOMPANY CURRICULUM UNITS AVAILABLE AS ED 010 829 AND ED 010 830. (MM)

THESE FOUR TESTS--"THAT-NOUN CLAUSES (ABSTRACT NOUNS, ABSTRACT ADJECTIVES, AND TRANSITIVE ANIMATE VERBS),""REVIEW OF EMBEDDING AND CONJUNCTIVE TRANSFORMATIONS,""COMPLEMENT VERBS," AND "IMPERATIVE"--WERE DESIGNED BY THE OREGON CURRICULUM STUDY CENTER FOR A 10TH-GRADE LANGUAGE CURRICULUM. THEY ARE INTENDED TO…

Discusses the continuing controversy over how to teach grammar. Finds that the traditional, structural, and transformational approaches each have their strengths and weaknesses, with none clearly better than the others. Suggests that the teaching of grammar, while not the key to improvement in written English, will always have a place in the…

A project to investigate the effects on the language development of secondary school pupils of a study of transformational grammar as represented in the Oregon English Curriculum involved 250 students in a large, coeducational high school near Auckland, New Zealand. The students were divided into three matched groups who studied different English…

English teachers have a responsibility to interpret for students the current linguistic insights into language and to lead them in an open-minded inquiry involving (1) careful observation of language data, (2) translation of this observation into rule-like descriptions, and (3) verification of the rules to determine if revisions must be made. In…

Because of the tentative nature of linguistic theories, the lack of proof that linguistics is an efficacious approach to language study, and the prescriptive nature of many of the books themselves, a textbook series based on linguistics is not recommended for use in the classroom. True linguists suggest theories about the structure of language and…